USA > New York > Franklin County > The north country; a history, embracing Jefferson, St. Lawrence, Oswego, Lewis and Franklin counties, New York, Volume 1 > Part 43
USA > New York > Jefferson County > The north country; a history, embracing Jefferson, St. Lawrence, Oswego, Lewis and Franklin counties, New York, Volume 1 > Part 43
USA > New York > Lewis County > The north country; a history, embracing Jefferson, St. Lawrence, Oswego, Lewis and Franklin counties, New York, Volume 1 > Part 43
USA > New York > Oswego County > The north country; a history, embracing Jefferson, St. Lawrence, Oswego, Lewis and Franklin counties, New York, Volume 1 > Part 43
USA > New York > St Lawrence County > The north country; a history, embracing Jefferson, St. Lawrence, Oswego, Lewis and Franklin counties, New York, Volume 1 > Part 43
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Other villages in the Thousand Island region were winning promi- nence as summer resorts. Early hotels in Clayton had been the White House, the stone Isaac Walton House and the old Northern Hotel on
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the corner of James and Water streets. Stephen Decatur Johnson combined the Northern Hotel with the Isaac Walton House and operated the hotel as the Walton House until the nineties. The Hub- bard House, for many years a prominent summer hotel, was first operated under that name in 1850 when it was acquired by Mr. John B. Hubbard, but prior to that time it had been Moffatt's Inn. The present brick Hubbard House was built in the eighties.
At Fishers Landing, located about midway between Alexandria Bay and Clayton, a large hotel, the Central House, was erected in the sixties when the Thousand Islands were just coming into prominence as a nationally known summer resort. Directly in front of the vil- lage is located Rock Island Light, erected by the government in 1854, the first keeper of which was that William Johnston who, as we have seen, won prominence in the Patriot War, as "Admiral Bill" Johnston of the Patriot navy. During the sixties and the seventies much ferrying was done between Fishers Landing and Gananoque, Canada, and Thousand Island Park, at the head of Wells Island, two miles away. Directly in front of Fishers Landing is Fine View, also a popular summer resort. Hay and farm produce were shipped exten- sively from Fishers Landing to Oswego prior to 1875, but in recent years the village has developed distinctly into a summer resort.
Prior to 1893 there were a few steam yachts in the Thousand Island region, mostly owned by wealthy summer residents. That year the first motor boat is supposed to have appeared at the Thou- sand Islands, the Tackhammer, which later became the Edgewood ferry. The Tackhammer was as noisy as its name would signify and could make six miles an hour when pressed. It was long a curiosity and people would throng the waterfront to see her run. Another early motor boat in the Thousand Islands was owned by W. H. Thompson and could make seven miles an hour.
FAMOUS THOUSAND ISLAND RESIDENCES
There is no space in a history of this kind to give a description of the scores of magnificent summer homes which may be found in the Thousand Island region, particularly between Alexandria Bay and Clayton. Among some of the large owners of real estate there are Mr. Edward J. Noble, president of Life Savers, Inc., who in 1925
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was assessed at $109,300 on twelve of his largest pieces of Thousand Island property on the American side; the George S. Emery estate, assessed that same year on a valuation of $124,200, including Calu- met Island, assessed for $60,000, and Round Island, assessed for $50,000; Castle Rest, owned by former Governor Frank O. Lowden of Illinois, was assessed in 1925 at $25,000, while the Boldt Castle on Hart Island, owned by Edward J. Noble, was assessed for $17,000.
Something ought to be said about Boldt's Castle, known by every- one who has ever visited the Thousand Islands region. It was con- structed by the late George C. Boldt, millionaire hotel owner. In 1906 Mr. Boldt began work on the castle which was to bear his name and which was intended to be the finest home in the Thousand Island region. Materials for the building were brought from every section of the world. The granite used was taken from Mr. Boldt's own quarry at Oak Island. Mantle pieces of carved marble were brought from Italy and Germany. The world was searched for draperies and tapestries of the finest description. Pictures and bric-a-brac were bought in the art centers of the great cities. The towers and min- arets peeping through the trees afforded a wonderful picture and do to this day. Near the head of the island is a reproduction of an ancient castle on the Rhine. It had been planned to expend at least $10,000,000 on the property, making it one of the finest summer homes in the world. But Mrs. Boldt died and a few years later, in 1916, Mr. Boldt passed away. About $2,000,000 had already been expended, but work stopped immediately. The place was left in charge of a caretaker. The grounds grew up with weeds. Stones were hurled through the plate glass windows. Birds and bats took up their abode in the deserted rooms and halls. Crates and barrels full of tile and mosiacs were left standing exactly where they were when work ceased.
In 1925 Mr. Edward J. Noble completed the transaction by which he became the sole owner of all the extensive Boldt properties in the Thousand Islands. Not only did he become the owner of the imposing structures on Hart Island, but also acquired a vast estate of 2,500 acres on Wellesley Island with elaborate summer homes. The Wel- lesley Farm of some 1,500 acres is one of the finest in the state with a dairy of blooded cattle and a large number of horses, sheep and
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hogs. Wellesley House, the Tennis House, the Lodge, the Birches, the Yacht House, the polo fields and the house boat, said to be the largest in the world, were all included in the purchase, probably the largest real estate transfer which ever took place in the Thousand Islands.
Mrs. Kurt Eisfeldt, better known as May Irwin, the celebrated actress, resides during the summers on her farm not far from Clay- ton. Many years ago Miss Irwin came with her sister, who was ill, to the Thousand Islands on a camping trip. With a row boat loaded down with camp equipment, the two girls rowed from Clayton and put up the first night in an old boat house while a terrific thunder storm raged. Miss Irwin often recalls that she put her sister to bed in the boat and played solitaire all night on top of the camp stove. The next day she rowed to a nearby island, purchased it from the owner with a down payment of $200, and since then, every summer, has come to the Thousand Islands, where she is now a well known summer resident.
"ADIRONDACK MURRAY"
It was "Adirondack Murray" who made the Adirondacks a noted resort region; there can be no question about that. No book was ever more widely read and none more severely criticized than Mur- ray's book, "Adventures in the Wilderness, or Camp Life in the Adirondacks," published in 1869. Everyone called Murray a con- summate liar, but everyone read his book. Published in the spring, that summer the migration to the Adirondacks took on the earmarks of a gold rush. No such influx of tourists had been experienced in the Adirondacks up until that time. They called it "Murray's Rush" and it took the residents of the Adirondack hamlets by surprise. The little hotels could not accommodate the people. One man paid five dollars to sleep on a pool table at Saranac Lake. Prices went sky- rocketing. Guides reaped a golden harvest. The Adirondacks were "made." The charm of the silvery lakes and the beauty of the tree- covered mountains were heard on every hand. "Murray's Rush" was not repeated, but from that time on an increasing number of tourists came every summer to the Adirondacks, until the hunters' lodges were replaced by palatial summer hotels and the woodland trails by concrete roads.
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"Adirondack Murray," in real life William Henry Harrison Mur- ray, was born on a farm in Connecticut in 1840 and after graduation from Yale elected to be a preacher. He was a remarkable pulpit orator and after holding several minor charges found himself called to the well known Park Street Church in Boston when he was but twenty-eight years of age. Unfortunately Murray, while an eloquent and magnetic speaker, lacked the balance to make a successful min- ister. He was accused, probably with truth, of owning race horses and betting on them. This caused his conservative parishioners much concern but it was "Adventures in the Wilderness" which capped the climax. Probably Murray painted too optimistic a picture of the health-giving qualities of the Adirondack forests. Scores of consump- tives, after reading the book, flocked to the Adirondacks. Some of them died there and Murray was unjustly accused of murdering them. Park Street Church suffered and Murray suddenly retired from the ministry about 1880. He became a traveling lecturer, a restaurant proprietor in Montreal and finally retired to the old homestead at Guilford, devoting his time until his death to the breeding of horses.
As late as Civil War days little was known of the Adirondacks outside its immediate vicinity. True the Philosophers Camp had been established as early as 1858. There were two or three little hotels which had some fame among hunters. There was Martin's on Lower Saranac Lake, and of Martin, the proprietor, "Adirondack Murray" had said he was one of the few men in the world who knew how to keep a hotel. There was Bartlett's on Upper Saranac, some- times known as the Sportsmen's Home, and just before Fort Sumter was fired upon, one Apollos Smith, who soon was to be known as simply Paul Smith, had built a little hunters' hotel on St. Regis Lake which in the course of time was to become the most noted summer hotel in the United States. But these hotels were known only to a few hardy travelers and to confirmed sportsmen. As late as 1864 The New York Times said editorially : "To people in general, Adirondack is still a realm of mystery. Although the waters of the Hudson, which today mingle with those of the ocean in our harbor, yesterday rippled over its rocks, and though on all sides of it have grown up villages and have been created busy thoroughfares, yet so little has this 'wonderful wilderness' been penetrated by enterprise or art, that
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our community is practically ignorant of its enormous capacities, both for the imparting of pleasure and the increase of wealth."
It was the Philosophers' Camp, referred to above, that brought such noted figures of another day in American affairs as Ralph Waldo Emerson, James Russell Lowell, Dr. Estes Howe and Louis Agassiz to the Adirondacks in 1858. The camp was held on the banks of Follensby Pond, and Donaldson, in his admirable History of the Adirondacks, records the following as being present at the first ses- sion : Ralph Waldo Emerson, the philosopher and essayist; James Russell Lowell; Louis Agassiz, the naturalist; Judge Ebenezer Roch- wood Hoar, who later became attorney general in the cabinet of Gen- eral Grant; Prof. Jeffries Wyman, professor of anatomy at Harvard; John Holmes, youngest brother of Oliver Wendell Holmes; Dr. Estes Howe, brother-in-law of Lowell and an ardent abolitionist; Horatio Woodman, organizer of the famous Saturday Club; Dr. Amos Binney, Bostonian, and William James Stillman, painter and patron of the arts. The second summer a much larger party assembled. Long- fellow was solicited to go but refused when he learned that Emerson was to take a gun. Emerson did not fire his gun but did attempt to smoke a pipe with disastrous results. From the Philosophers' Camp came the Adirondack Club, a tract of some 22,500 acres centering about Ampersand Pond, which was purchased from the state for $600. When the Civil War broke out, interest in the club died and the land finally reverted to the state for unpaid taxes.
The village of Saranac Lake, Franklin county, about which so much of the recreational and health restoring life of the Adirondacks centers, was first settled in 1819 by Jacob Smith Moody, all of whose sons later became famous hunters, trappers and guides. Perhaps the best known of these was "Uncle Mart" Moody, who in 1868 moved to Big Tupper Lake and built a famous hotel for sportsmen, the old Tupper Lake House. It was "Uncle Mart" who guided Governor Horatio Seymour and Lady Alemia Murray, who was the friend of Gerrit Smith, and John Brown and who later was a favorite guide of Presidents Chester A. Arthur and Grover Cleveland. He had been one of the guides at the Philosophers' Camp and had worked for "Adirondack Murray." Col. Milote Baker was a prominent early resident. He built a small hotel where Governor Seymour and his party was entertained and he became the first postmaster of the vil-
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lage in 1854. The village grew slowly. In 1856 there were but fifteen families. Later as the Adirondacks became better known, the village became a sort of headquarters for lumbermen, guides and hunters. It remained for a young doctor, Edward Livingston Tru- deau, however, to bring to the little Adirondack village world-wide fame.
"THE BELOVED PHYSICIAN"
To one who wants the story of Dr. Trudeau, there is no better place to go than to his Autobiography, a most remarkable book and one particularly recommended to those concerned about their health. Edward Livingston Trudeau was born in New York in 1848 of French descent. He was educated in Paris and seems to be something of an idler in his youth until the death of an older brother with tubercu- losis seemed to sober him and he entered the New York College of Physicians and Surgeons from which he was graduated in 1871. That same year he married and after a wedding trip returned to New York to practice. But in nursing his brother, Trudeau had contracted tuberculosis himself. He had scarcely started his practice before the disease made itself evident in an unmistakable way. He went south on the advice of his physician but returned unimproved. It seemed that he was doomed.
Then Trudeau made his own decision. As a youth he had spent some time at a primitive lodging house in the Adirondacks known as Paul Smith's. He had never forgotten the Adirondacks. He had a feeling that if he could get back there he would be improved. This was long before the time of out-door treatment for tuberculosis. The thing to do if one had tuberculosis was to avoid all exposure. But Dr. Trudeau had his own ideas. His friends thought he was crazy but he insisted upon making the trip north, a journey which would have been no easy undertaking for a well man. The railroad went only as far as Ausable Forks and from there the sick man went by stage, carried on a mattress. Finally he arrived at Paul Smith's, a very sick man. No one expected he would return. But, instead, he began to improve in health. He wandered about the woods, gradually growing stronger. He spent the winter with Paul Smith, although Smith, himself, advised strongly against it. When Paul Smith bought a hotel in Plattsburgh, Trudeau moved to Saranac Lake in the autumn
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of 1876. He seems to have abandoned all thoughts of ever practicing his profession again and spent his time in hunting and trapping, gradually gaining the reputation of being a crack shot.
As Trudeau's health improved there came demands upon which he felt he could hardly refuse. The villagers needed medical atten- tion and he found himself gradually beginning to practice again. His health continued to improve, despite the duties he was assuming, but Trudeau thought that at the most he was only prolonging the in- evitable end. But in the meantime Trudeau was evolving some theories of his own. It was apparent that the climate of Saranac Lake and the outdoor life he was leading were proving of immense benefit to him. It was just at this time that he heard of the theories of the German physician, Brehmer, who favored outdoor treatment for tuberculosis, and in 1882 came the discovery of the tubercle bacillus by Koch. All of this marked a new epoch in the life of the young physician who even yet had the shadow of the White Plague hanging over his head. He managed to fix up a crude laboratory and to test Koch's theory. The laboratory was in his house and both house and laboratory burned, but through the generosity of a patient, Mr. George C. Cooper, a stone and tile laboratory was constructed in place of it in 1894. Later a library was added to the equipment. It was in this laboratory that the series of experiments which has done so much to stamp out tuberculosis was conducted.
Dr. Trudeau was now on fire with the idea of curing others, even as it was apparent that he was prolonging his own life. It was his idea to establish a health colony at Saranac Lake where patients of limited means could receive treatment. With this end in view he collected a total of $5,000 of which Anson Phelps Stokes gave $500. Residents of Saranac Lake donated sixteen acres of land on a hill side and there the doctor determined to erect his sanatorium. The first two buildings, simply small cottages, were erected in 1884. It was the first application in this country of the open air treatment for tuberculosis. Gradually other cottages were added as the fame of the sanatorium spread and funds became available. For some time the institution was known as the Adirondack Cottage Sanatorium, but now its name is the Trudeau Sanatorium, perpetuating the name of the great pioneer in the modern treatment of tuberculosis. Grad- ually a whole colony of detached cottages sprang up with an admin-
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istration building, a laundry, a recreational building, an infirmary, a library, a church and even a post office. For some time past the Trudeau School of Tuberculosis has given advanced training to phy- sicians in the special treatment of tuberculosis.
Dr. Trudeau died at Saranac Lake November 15, 1915, of the disease which he had managed to keep at arms' length for forty years. Visitors at Saranac Lake today will not fail to see the me- morial by Gutzon Borglum, presented by 1,500 ex-patients of the doctor, which is poised by the edge of the sanatorium plateau, show- ing the Beloved Physician as so many of his patients remembered him. The statue was unveiled August 10, 1918. Dr. Trudeau received many academic honors. Honorary degrees were conferred upon him by Columbia, McGill and the University of Pennsylvania. He was the first president of the National Association for the Study and Pre- vention of Tuberculosis and honorary president of the International Tuberculosis Congress.
The success of the Trudeau experiment resulted in bringing world fame to the Adirondacks as a health resort. It attracted thousands of sufferers from tuberculosis to that section of New York state. In 1931 there were fifty buildings connected with the Trudeau Sana- torium, including the Baker Memorial Chapel. There were four phy- sicians and fifty nurses, 120 employees and an average of 185 patients. The monetary value of the sanatorium that year was about $750,000. The discovery made by Trudeau that the Adiron- dacks provided an ideal climate for the sufferer from tuberculosis, resulted in a number of other sanatoriums being built. Among them are the Stony Wold Sanatorium at Lake Kushuqua, Ray Brook State Sanatorium, the United States Veterans' Hospital, Sunmount, Tupper Lake and the Sanatorium Gabriels.
"R. L. S." IN THE ADIRONDACKS
On a wall of a little house in Saranac Lake, one reads the follow- ing inscription on a bronze tablet :
"Here Dwelt "Robert Louis Stevenson "During the winter of 1887-1888
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"I was walking in the verandah of a small house outside the ham- let of Saranac. It was winter; the night was very dark; the air clear and cold and sweet with the purity of forests. For the making of a story here were fine conditions.
" 'Come,' said I to my engine, 'Let us make a tale'." -The Genesis of Ballantrae.
Robert Louis Stevenson arrived at Saranac Lake October 3rd, 1887, and remained until the middle of the following April. He was suffering from pulmonary tuberculosis. Friends had suggested that he take the cure at Saranac. He had already achieved a remarkable literary success. "Treasure Island," "Kidnapped" and "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" had made tremendous sensations. Stevenson rented a house from Andrew J. Baker, a guide, the Bakers keeping rooms in one of the wings. Wrote Stevenson: "Our house -emphatically 'Baker's'-is on a hill, and has sight of a stream turning a corner in the valley-bless the face of running water- and sees some hills too, and the paganly prosaic roofs of Saranac, itself." The house is still "Baker's" but it is known far and wide as the Stevenson Cottage, losing its identity by the mere fact that one winter it housed a famous stranger.
There is nothing to show that Stevenson was especially impressed by Saranac Lake. He liked tropic nights and balmy days. At Saranac the days were icy and at night the temperature went far below zero. He found nothing in the gray, northern skies to attract him. The place depressed him. And yet his winter at Saranac was beneficial to him in more ways than one. His health improved de- spite the fact that he paid no attention to the doctor's instructions and insisted upon lying in bed, smoking cigarettes, with his windows tightly closed. And how he worked. He wrote twelve essays for Scribner's for which he received $3,500. It was at Saranac that he wrote the major part of "The Master of Ballantrae." He wrote the preface to the "Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin," the preface to "The Black Arrow," the poem, "Winter," and collaborated with Lloyd Os- bourne in "The Wrong Box."
Strangely enough, Stevenson, the man who hated winter, gained his principal reputation at Saranac as a skater. He skated often and expertly although he seems to have seldom referred to his accom-
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plishment, and it is said that he could write his name as easily on ice as he could on paper. A strong friendship developed between Stevenson and Dr. Trudeau, although R. L. S. constantly violated his doctor's orders. Trudeau in his Autobiography thus refers to Stevenson : "If we didn't always agree the impression of his strik- ing personality, his keen insight into life, his wondrous idealism, his nimble intellect, and his inimitable vocabulary in conversation, have grown on me more and more as the years roll by."
The Stevenson Society, formed in 1916, largely through the agency of Stephen Chalmers and Robert Hobart Davis, now holds annual meetings in Saranac Lake. The memorial tablet on the Baker cot- tage, before referred to, and executed by Gutzon Borglum, was placed by the society.
EARLY ADIRONDACK HOTELS
Among the more famous of the early Adirondack hotels was Martin's, located on Lower Saranac Lake and built primarily as a hotel for sportsmen and tourists about 1850. Of the proprietor "Adirondack Murray" wrote: "Martin is one of the few men in the world who seem to know how to keep a hotel." Later in 1875 Martin's was referred to as a hotel accommodating 250 guests with large, airy rooms where one might enjoy most of the comforts to be found in the large metropolitan hotels. When Martin established his hotel, the nearest railroad went to Keeseville, sixty miles away.
Bartlett's was another of these early Adirondack hotels often re- ferred to in the writings of travelers of Civil War days. Virgil C. Bartlett, influenced no doubt by the success of Martin, built a small hotel on Upper Saranac Lake. It was called the Sportsmen's Home, but was more generally spoken of as plain Bartlett's. The house could accommodate fifty guests and was a long, rambling, two story structure. Mrs. Bartlett soon established a reputation for setting one of the best tables in the mountains. Bartlett ran his hotel until his death in 1884, when it was purchased by a private club. Dr. Van Dyke called it the "homeliest, quaintest, coziest place in the Adiron- dacks."
When Apollos Smith established a primitive forest tavern on St. Regis Lake, he probably little thought that one day he would be the proprietor of what was perhaps the most famous summer hotel in
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the world. Apollos Smith soon became known, first as "Pol" and later as plain Paul. Naturally shrewd, with a keen sense of values and a thorough woodsman, Smith, as a young man, had earned a reputation as a guide. In 1852 he bought 200 acres of land near Loon Lake, and on the north branch of the Saranac river, not far from the lake, he built his Hunter's Home, a man's hotel, capable of accommodating about a dozen guests. Board and lodging were $1.50 a day, the same rate, it is interesting to observe, that Charles Cross- man was then charging in his hotel at Alexandria Bay. Six years later Smith bought fifty acres of land on St. Regis Lake and erected a small hotel of seventeen bedrooms. It was opened in 1859 and from the beginning attracted guests. Paul Smith never failed to make money. He made it from his hotel and he made it in real estate speculation. At one time he owned between 30,000 and 40,000 acres of Adirondack land. He acquired water powers before anyone else appreciated their value and incorporated the Paul Smith's Electric Light and Power and Railroad Company. He died in 1912, age 87.
THE ADIRONDACK PARK
While the Adirondacks as a geographical term are usually con- sidered to refer to that section in the northern part of New York State lying between Lake Champlain on the east and the Valley of the Black river on the west, and stretching from the Mohawk Valley northward to the fertile lands of St. Lawrence and Franklin counties, the term, Adirondack Park, means something else. The boundaries of the Adirondack Park are defined by law. It includes over 2,000,000 acres, most of which is owned by the State of New York. The Adirondack Park includes parts or all of Herkimer, Saratoga, Hamil- ton, Lewis, Warren, Washington, St. Lawrence, Oneida, Franklin, Fulton, Clinton and Essex counties. Five separate mountain ranges run parallel to each other throughout the entire region. The first on the east is the Luzerne range; next to the westward is the Kay- aderosseras; the third chain is the Schroon range; the fourth, the Boquet range, while the fifth, the main mountain chain, is the Adirondack proper. This chain is more than 100 miles in length. Mount Marcy, the highest peak in the state, towering 5,344 feet in the air, is the main feature of this range, while other notable peaks, all over 5,000 feet high, are McIntyre, Haystack and Skylight.
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